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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment

Why I’m still annoyed about sharing a name with Jethro Tull’s flute-botherer

Ian Anderson of the English rock band Jethro Tull plays the flute at the Newport Jazz Festival in June 1969 in Newport, Rhode Island.
Ian Anderson of the English rock band Jethro Tull plays the flute at the Newport Jazz Festival in June 1969 in Newport, Rhode Island. Photograph: Tom Copi/Getty Images

The two Stephen Mosses who both write for the Guardian (Letters, 14 August) and seem to have an amicable enough relationship have no idea what it was like being one of two Ian Andersons signed to Island Records in early 1969. Let’s just say it didn’t end well. I found having an extra initial to be the only long-term solution to the confusion.

And then there was the matter of the Ian Anderson who was a leader of the National Front, or the Scottish footballer, who mercifully both seem to have long since faded from most people’s memories. The only thing that still rankles is that the mono-limbed flute-botherer of Jethro Tull, two weeks my junior, gets in the Guardian birthdays list and I don’t!
Ian A Anderson
Cambridge

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